


Diēs caniculārēs

by lazlong



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe., Conventional narrative., F/F, F/M, Meddling with time-lines and characters.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bad is never good until worse happens. (c)Danish Proverb</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diēs caniculārēs

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I will help you if I must, I will kill you if I can.*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1404847) by [lazlong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong). 
  * Inspired by [mirror of soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076419) by [lazlong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong). 



> Disclaimer: Nothing below is mine, except mistakes. Only plot as such could be considered as a result of my imagination.  
> A/N: Unbetaed. Feedback loved and welcomed!

**_Coming or going_ **

_When it all comes down to dust_   
_I will help you if I must,_   
_I will kill you if I can._

(c) Cohen, “Story of Isaac”

“When is he coming, Craig, dear?”

Craig thinks that the world has gone mad. His mother is asking for Justin. Relentlessly.

It is so hot, he is so tired, and if mother is going to keep this litany of madness for some time, he will give up, because there is no more in him to struggle when sleep is unattainable luxury.

**-**

“Craig, dear, when is he coming?”

Despite careful explaining, that they are not on speaking terms, to put it mildly, she repeats her request, or shall we say, demand.

Mother, who kept repeating that Justin’s disgusting lifestyle is “just a phase, he’ll grow out of it, Craig, I’ve seen it numerous times”.

 -

He won’t lower himself to ask where she has seen it. There are some things that son shouldn’t know about his own mother. Come to think about it, there are multiple things that he doesn’t want to know about her.

 -

She has refused to acknowledge the dire consequences of Justin’s choice of life; always considered it something insignificant, so he has stopped mentioning it, because mother has always shrugged off his concerns and worries; but now.. now she, out of blue, wants to meet her erstwhile grandson now, right now.

But then, he has been her favourite, always.

 -

“Craig.. when?”

So, even if he wanted to spare her the first sight of this depravity that might as well be her last - because of shock, because he has no illusions that Justin will come alone, and agrees mainly because he feels like HE is going to die first if somebody else (apart from him, him alone, all this bloody time) won’t help his mother through the night- he finally gives up.

He gives up for so many things these days, things that he considered sacred once upon the time - and each time when he thinks there is nothing left to give up, he turns out to be wrong. He is afraid to think these days.

-

He asks Jennifer _to ask, to force, to plead, to blackmail_ Justin into coming, and then briefly hates himself for this weakness, for breaking his own promises, principles, whatever made him a man he considered once to be.

She promised nothing, just that she will pass the message.

What a mess.

**\---**

 His mother is lying here, most probably dying, and there is not a thing that he can do. At least not a thing that he can think of.

 It seems that lately there is very little that he can do. His ex-wife is heavy with a child from her young admirer, and is going to get married, and have her own cares. She visited, of course, but had to leave. Obviously.

  
His daughter is busy with studies - somehow having discovered the lure of academic world in her tender age, and she is away in some insane science-group.

  
So the only one to come and stay with him and help out is his queer son that he had renounced once upon a time, and with him, this Kinney that he wanted dead at one point.

  
Craig thinks, it, this coming, should bother him more, make him feel grateful to his son, or may be angry, make him feel at least something.

  
But it is hot and hopeless, and his mother is dying, and Craig discovers that he doesn't care so much about his son’s moral convictions or lack of them when his mother is about to depart. At least not in the way and not in the terms he used to.

 -

It is hot, and stuffy, and nothing really matters anymore in this silence of summer, when blazingly hot stones of meandering streets are dragging out the last oxygen from air, when nights do bring long-forgotten nightmares and when it is impossible to sleep more than an hour without waking up with beating heart.

 For Craig is sort of numb, and frozen, in the middle of summer.

  **\---  
** Craig knows, or at least believes that he knows: it is not characteristic for most of his contemporaries, but he was always believer of tight-knit family, of never letting strangers into family life, never letting others to “help”. He worked hard to support family, and then struggled to defend it to the best of his ability.

  
He failed, and then sought solace in the hands of that scalding little thing, but after some time she left him / he left her, he doesn't remember anymore how it was.

  
So he is alone with his dying mother, and he can not help thinking, that if he had listened to Jennifer about Justin, then he might have her besides him right now, no, not might have, but she would have been here for sure to stay, not only for flying visit.

 -

And Molly (because / but then she wouldn't have had time to go to her science - something); he is not so sure about Justin, he thinks that he don’t know where he would have been, and he knows, at least he thinks he knows, for sure, that there wouldn't be a life growing inside Jennifer. And whether that is good or bad, he can not say.

  
But he is past point of caring, there is only huge empty hole inside him, and he just doesn't know how to go on living.

He feels impotent, in all possible aspects.

**-**

Damned, if he does something, and damned if does nothing.

 ---  
All his life he has been firm believer in rules. If you follow rules, study diligently, work hard, then the life will be good to you.

 ---

But life is not good to me, he thinks slowly, it is downright awful, and he feels cheated, somehow tricked into believing the set of rules that doesn't apply to real world. Robbed of life, that was promised to him, if he will be good and obedient follower of the rules, set by elders.

 -

But there isn’t anybody left to blame, at least not living in this world.. and his mother, under the terrible heat of August sky, is too old to be blamed for his choices.

 

**_Coming and then going_ **

_Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,_  
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.  
What does man gain by all the toil  
    at which he toils under the sun?  
A generation goes, and a generation comes,  
    but the earth remains forever.  
..  
All things are full of weariness;  
    a man cannot utter it;  
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,  
    nor the ear filled with hearing.  
What has been is what will be,  
    and what has been done is what will be done,  
 _and there is nothing new under the sun._ **  
**

(c) Ecclesiastes 1, the Bible

Take a look of his son, take a good look - not that he cares anymore, he is sort of numb, but this is the closest example of the unfairness of life that he have right before his eyes: his son did it wrong, all wrong things in the wrong time with wrong person, yet there is Kinney who holds him and is besides him, above him, under him, around him, always.

-

My son, he did everything in inversion: he fell in love, or in fuck; he fucked around and then graduated; and then got beaten up (no weird terms like "bashing", thank you very much); and this fucking criminal, seducer of my son, stayed by him somehow, and he is studying right now, and he is working, both of them are working; he and this Kinney.

-  
Come to think about it, they have occupied two rooms, and almost never leave.

-  
Justin sits with his grandmother, and talks, and helps, and then he returns to rooms.  
Kinney speaks on phone, and talks with my mother, and helps, (Kinney and helps!) and then returns to rooms.  
  
It is as if they are living in their own world, with nobody else except themselves, and they do not care.  
  
Justin is perfunctorily polite, and I am Craig or Father to him. But not Dad, never ever anymore. Kinney doesn’t speak at all. For someone into advertising he can be remarkably silent.  
  
\--  
My child, my firstborn son, my only son.

  
I am hard pressed to find the same child that looked upon me in wonder in this hard-edged man that faces me right now, when I open the trice-damned door.

 I don’t know what to say, so I just open the door for evil and let them in. Them. I let them IN. Voluntary. Shame on me.

 - **  
**

My son, I always taught you to live proper life. But you took all my teachings and threw in my face.  
No sex before marriage - you went out to red district and basically picked up a whore.  
It was not a girl three years junior you (optimal age-gap, as numerous articles have proved), but a man twelve years senior you.  
You did not fuck her, he fucked you.  
-  
I just do not know what to do and how to live anymore. I am well over forty, my old beliefs turned out to be wrong, and I do not know new rules.  
  
I gave the management of Taylor electronics to my substitute, and I consult him over telephone. I say, family emergency. But the truth is, I do not care anymore, I can not make myself care about living much more.  
  
As soon as my mother is gone, I think I will go as well. After all, there is no one I am needed to.  
\--

Do Your duty and You will be fine. What a lie.

So I sit at my mother's kitchen, and stare at the yard and observe. I think, never ever I had been so quite in my life.

\---

They are not as obvious as I was afraid in their behaviour, but they do not hide _it,_ this despicable and damnable affair, either.

There is intimacy in their gestures, and still they could have been taken for close friends most of the time, similar in some gestures and borrowing each others mimic. My fun is rare these days, but still - what a fun to see _my_ expression on _his_ face.

 -

Not so much fun to see his expression on my son’s face, but I will live.

 -

When I open the door to the attic, mistakenly, there is no soft intimacy in the bend of the broad plane of Kinney’s back, over my son; no tender consideration be found in carnivorous growling, only raw sexuality.

 -

I mumble a shocked apology, and push the door close as fast as I can.

Still, image is burned into my retinas, and I can not stop thinking how frail my son is, and be afraid for him.

At the end, no matter how much I want my son to live right, I want him to live happy. It takes and breaks me that he takes the most damned path, rich with dangers, prejudices and silent disapproval that can take murderous glee at any moment. 

 -

I do not need, I never have needed a friend. Family is more than enough that is all you need. There is no time for such trivialities as friendship, I declared, between work and family. Still, I could use one now.

 

**_coming and staying_ **

_When it all comes down to dust_  
I will kill you if I must,  
I will help you if I can.

_(c) Cohen, “Story of Isaac”_

 

It all seemed so important; I wanted so much for Justin. I wanted easier, proper life for him: Darthmoor, and then hand my business, on a silver plate, so that he don’t have to struggle so much as I did, and then may be some grandchildren

 -

Son, son, my beloved son.

How ever you were going to survive in this technocratic world, if you give yourself to this fallacy, this madness and waste of time that you call art?

Come to think about it – art and love, these two are utmost fallacies of the world - unreasonable, unprofitable, unsafe.

This cruel world is going to eat you alive, and then spit out your bones.

You will lose your precious years, and come out penniless, without education or money.

 --

I wanted to spare you this.

I wanted to protect you, for you are a mere child, despite your seventeen years.

You think you know everything, yet you merely have caught a glimpse of world.

 ---

And when I think about my silent prayers now, I want to laugh myself in face: "Dear Lord, please not with Daphne..": NOT with that Daphne, for she is black and poor, okey, dark-skinned and not so wealthy, but you got the idea, dear Lord. My son, he deserves someone appropriate for him. And dear Lord, not that Jenise in country club who flirts shamelessly because she comes from Europe and I think that she is Lutheran or something like that and it is bad to have wrong faith in home.

And to think that I used to worry about him hooking up with black or poor or Lutheran girl.

 Well.

 He did not disappoint me, he hooked up with white and rich and Catholic - just man. And he have no religion at all. Just  - is he. Male.  
-  
I used to want so much for Justin, worry so much. Now I want nothing at all, just that he is alive and well. Because in face of death, of all our morality, it seems trivial all of the sudden that I wanted my son to be so specific, to fit my dream.

-  
Oh, in the corner of my consciousness, I still want it. But I do not believe myself anymore. At least not so strongly.  
\---  
Because we all are going to die, and even if I can not save my mother, I can still  - not love - but at least not hate, my son.  
\---  
My queer, blond son with harsh eyes and bitter twist in his lips. There is a poker face on him, whenever he speaks with me. Like now.  
\--  
And then door is open, there is whirlwind, and blond - wah, what a women - enters. With a child. Who squeals: "Daddy" and Brian, this Brian picks him up, and smiles, and murmurs "Sonny-boy", and all I can think is: "Your boy is going to hurt you one day, hurt you so much that You are going to die. Or wish to be dead." 

 -

But I keep my mouth shut, may be for the first time in my life, because whenever I tried to do my best to do what is right (save my son, marriage, pride) it all turned to dust. So I am keeping silence, even if it all seems dire mistake.  
because this is not my place to speak and I am learning to keep silence.  
-  
And then it is Bedlam, because Justin have entered the kitchen, and the Blond is apologizing to him, and asking if it is alright if she leaves Gus.. oh, so that's the name.. and Gus is squirming, in the direction of my son, and saying "Jus, Jus", and my son, my son, my only son, twenty years of age, I was studying and drinking occasionally at that age, is smiling this beaming smile of his in the direction of this querp, and taking him in his hands as if he is his own blood and bone. Smiles the smile, that once was directed at me. It stings.  
-  
And Kinney, Kinney lets him take the child and sort of smiles as well and his eyes are soft and shy and proud. I want to kill him, I want be him, I want for Kinney never ever stop looking at my son that way, long after I have gone.  
\---  
  My mother has the rudeness to be polite to Kinney and pronounce: "Justin, You have chosen well. This young man is going to have beautiful children, dear".  
And my son with an insolent smile answers: "He already had".  
-  
And this three-year old brat is whirling in my son's arms, and smiling, and chatting, and suddenly there is life again, in me, in my mother, in this old, beautiful house.  
And then he is asking, pointing at me, "who is he" and I am calm, because I know, that I am nothing. I know. Now I know.

-  
Son, my son, answers: It is Craig. And it hurts, so fucking much hurts, that I am ready to off myself.. when he adds "Craig, my Dad".. and the querp keeps parroting "Mydad, mydad, mydad", in high-pitched voice that makes my head spin.

I think that finally this old house has been heated up with this God-blessed summer, because ice is melting within my bones and I can draw a breath of late, yet warm summer - golden in its heat, in its grace of unexpected forgiveness, in its promise of Indian summer yet to come.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Companion of "I will help you if I must, I will kill you if I can". 
> 
> Basically the same story, but in old-fashioned narration and with few different phrasings. 
> 
> Also, with ending: saccharine-sweet, yet believable - people do grow up and change, first-hand experience.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [mirror of soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076419) by [lazlong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong)




End file.
